I’ve fallen hard for Tavern Keeper, a sim where you manage an inn in a fantasy realm filled with halflings, orcs, and elves, serving drinks, cooking meals, and dealing with occasional devastating fire or insect infestation. Despite only entering early access just last week (after more than a decade of development), it’s already beloved among players who awarded it an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ review score average on Steam.
Something I didn’t get too deeply into when I gushed about Tavern Keeper last week is its item design tool. There are all sorts of objects to build in your tavern, from useful furniture like tables, chairs, and beds to decorative items like bookcases, paintings, and rugs—but that’s just the start.
Dungeons and Dragons table for your tavern! from r/TavernKeeper
It’s already pleasing to look at from a distance, with some papers, candles, and dice laid out as if a few halflings and orcs gathered for a campaign at their local pub. But zooming in on it reveals more and more detail. There isn’t just dice, but D20s, D10s, and D4s. There’s a little gaming board with figurines that include a dragon and several heroes—and the tiny figurines even have bases so they don’t fall over, as they would. There are character sheets set out in front of three of the four seats at the table, and at the dungeon master’s seat there’s a DM privacy screen, a reference book, and other materials. Lovely!
But that’s not all. If you open the design tool to inspect Jolle’s D&D table you can zoom in even closer and see there’s actually a ton of character info on those character sheets. They have names, classes, stats, and even a little avatar of each character, as if the players doodled them. There’s an assassin rogue called “Edge Lord” with 34 HP, and an orc named Glinda Scarlett with 19 charisma. You can even peep the dungeon master’s monster manual, which is open to the entry on the Beholder.
That’s an astounding level of detail for a tiny prop in a tavern management sim, and it really highlights the power of the design tool Greenheart Games made and the creativity (and I assume patience) of the players using it.
These are just props, mind you: the table, despite its elaborate decorations, is still just a table, and tavern patrons will sit and drink their grog there, not actually look like they’re playing D&D—though thanks to all the items Jolle added to the table, its “decor” score is five stars and will make visitors happy to sit at it. Plus, it makes me happy to look at it.
It’s worth mentioning that the way these items get shared is one of the weaker aspects of Tavern Keeper: instead of player creations being shared in the Steam Workshop you have to enter each item’s number into your game and then import it. A tiny hassle, but well worth it.
Here are a few other items I spotted. You can find plenty more on the official Discord or the Tavern Keeper subreddit.